Fowler v. Sponge Products Corporation

• Decision Date: 25 June 1957
• Docket Number: No. 5210.,5210.
• Citation: 246 F.2d 223
• Parties: Frederick V. FOWLER et al., Defendants, Appellants, v. SPONGE PRODUCTS CORPORATION et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

246 F.2d 223 (1957)

Frederick V. FOWLER et al., Defendants, Appellants, v. SPONGE PRODUCTS CORPORATION et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees.

No. 5210.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

June 25, 1957.

Robert B. Russell, Boston, Mass., with whom Porter, Chittick & Russell, Boston, Mass., was on brief, for appellants.

Hector M. Holmes, Boston, Mass., with whom A. Donham Owen, San Francisco, Cal., W. R. Hulbert and Fish, Richardson & Neave, Boston, Mass., were on brief, for appellees.

Before MAGRUDER, Chief Judge, and WOODBURY and HARTIGAN, Circuit Judges.

HARTIGAN, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, entered on January 22, 1957, holding plaintiffs' Letters Patent No. 2,667,653 valid and infringed.

The facts, as disclosed by the record and the opinion of the district court, are substantially as follows.

The patent in suit, No. 2,667,653, for Combined Mop and Wringer, was issued on February 2, 1954, to plaintiff-appellee Fuller Brush Company as assignee of Alfred L. LeFebvre. Plaintiff-appellee Sponge Products Corporation is a licensee under the patent. It was contended at trial and on appeal that mops made and sold by defendants-appellants Frederick V. Fowler and Stanton Supply Co. Inc. infringe particularly Claims 1 and 2 of the LeFebvre patent. Claim 1, which is typical, reads:

"1. In a mop including a handle and a head secured to said handle and presenting a front edge forward of said handle in relation to direction of mop advance under normal mopping action, and a rear edge at the opposite side of said handle, a compressible sponge block releasably secured to said head and presenting at the front of said head a dirt accumulating face of substantial depth and at the rear of said head a rear face, and having a bottom working face presenting at the rear an edge displaced below said head, a presser element pivoted adjacent the rear edge of said head to swing about an axis fixed relative to said head and above said bottom working face and at right angles to said handle, said presser element having a pivot connecting portion and a sponge pressing portion in angular relation to said pivot connecting portion and spaced thereby from said axis a distance less than the thickness of said sponge at the rear face, and an operating handle for said presser element to swing said element against the undersurface of said sponge to compress said sponge against said head with said sponge pressing portion first contacting said sponge at said rearward edge below said head and displacing said latter edge forwardly and progressively compressing said sponge from rear to front while leaving the front face of said sponge substantially unobstructed to flush dirt accumulations out said front face."

The LeFebvre mop consists of three principal parts, a mop handle, a mop unit and a wringer unit. The mop unit is made up of a block of cellulose sponge attached to a backing plate which in turn is attached to a mop handle at a 45° angle. The wringer unit is a metal plate hinged or pivoted to the backing plate at a point to the upper rear of the sponge block. It consists of a flat presser or squeezing plate set away from the pivot a distance less than the thickness of the sponge by a connecting portion which is joined at an angle to the squeezing plate itself. A handle is provided by which the squeezing plate is moved and which snaps onto the mop handle to hold the wringer unit out of the way during mopping operations. The squeezing operation is performed by swinging the squeezing plate around the pivot to compress the sponge and drive out excess water.

The essential part of the mop, so far as the present action is concerned, is the wringer unit and in particular the connecting portion between the pivot or pintle and the squeezing plate. It is this feature which plaintiffs say constitutes the "guts" of LeFebvre's invention. Plaintiffs maintain, and the district court finds, that the connecting portion, by angularly setting off the squeezing plate from the axis of rotation of the pintle, produces a forward and upward compression upon the sponge when the squeezing plate is swung about the pintle. Such forward and upward compression, the district court further finds, increases the efficiency of the squeezing operation by producing a more effective back to front flushing action and prolongs the useful life of the sponge.

Pointing to the aforementioned offset of the squeezing plate created by the connecting portion, the district court concludes that LeFebvre "introduced a new element into the combination of elements constituting his mop." Accordingly, it holds the patent good and valid at law, granting plaintiffs recovery of all damages sustained from defendants' infringement and directing a perpetual injunction against further infringement.

Since we feel obliged to say that in our opinion the district court's conclusion on the validity of the patent in suit is clearly erroneous, we need not describe the mop made and sold by defendants. Suffice it to say that it is in most all respects, including the wringer unit, similar to that of the plaintiffs.

We believe that the patent in suit covers nothing more than knowledge which has long existed in the public domain. A wringer unit which includes a squeezing plate hinged or pivoted to the backing plate at a point to the upper rear of the sponge block is disclosed by the expired German patent, Sendler No. 611,571. Moreover, connecting portions functioning as offset hinges, such as the one used by LeFebvre to connect the squeezing plate to its pivot, have been well known in other arts and the plaintiffs do not contend otherwise. LeFebvre's connecting portion when looked at in isolation does not present a new element or idea.

The question then becomes does LeFebvre's connecting portion constitute a new element or idea when used to offset the squeezing plate in a mop structure. On this point it is significant to note that plaintiffs concede and the record establishes that every element of the LeFebvre mop, other than...